I have a 1977 320i, 104k miles, in great condition - body is a 10/10, interior 8/10 (the seats need to be redone) engine is 8/10 - over all a great car. Has a starting problem though - will start right up in the morning and run well after warming up; starts right up again as long as I turn it over within 30-40 minutes of the first start, if it sits any longer than that, it will turn over but won't start until it's been left for several hours. Replaced the starter motor so it's not that. One guy speculated that maybe it was leaky injectors. Could it be a cold valve start problem? Some other fuel mixture/temperture regulator? Don't know yet if this will happen when it is winter up here in New England as I got the car last spring. Any thoughts?

I had this exact same issue. I'm pretty sure the car works great now that it is cold. Well next spring you will probably have the same issue. If I started the car and drove it I had to be back to the car in less than an hour or it wouldn't start for another two or three hours. I only had this when it was warm outside.

To fix this issue all you should need is a fuel pressure accumulator. There are several available; I recommend the Bosch, I've had it for four years and the issue hasn't reoccurred.

The part is at the back of the car under the fuel tank'ish' area. It's really easy to get off as long as you use two wrenches and squeeze like using a nutcracker. I took like an hour to figure this out (maybe 2-3 and frustration when I was a noob). If you do it right should take less than an hour start to finish.

So, I took the car to two reputable high-end BMW shops and they were unable to replicate the problem - I suspect they didn't listen to me and tried to restart the car too soon, and weren't that familiar with the older BMWs - one garage I called said they didn't work on anything older then '91s! So I pulled it from them rather than having them spend hours and dollars trying to find what the issue was.

Then I found a good garage in Waltham, Mass - Little Foreign Car Garage - the mechanic made a house call and fixed the problem within about 20 minutes. Turned out the rubber edge of the air intake hood had been bent up about 3/4s of an inch and wasn't sealing properly - letting too much air into the system. The idle and fuel mixture had been adjusted to try and compensate for too much air and just further distorted the problem. Used a hair dryer to soften and remold the edge (it must have been like that for a couple of years!) and resealed it. Been running fine with some minor further adjustements to the mixture - no more slightly warm restart problem!

1977 320i - 105k miles - runs strong and lots of fun! At a driving School run by the White Mountain BMW Club of New Hampshire, New Hampshire Motor Speedway, April 16, 2011 - great club and well run event.

Ahem ! 28 posts later and still nobody can give a clear answer !
"1983 320i 1.8 fuel injected 5 spd." is a great little car if you can get it to start cold or hot !
So far , Not so good ! I put in the search engine about cold / warm start problems ! Everyone seems to like to beat around the bush ( B.S. ) alot rather than come up with the solution ! I know i'm not the only one having these prob's so i don't feel lke i'm alone , because the net is filled with others with the same prob ! I think the most simple solution is to diss the bleepin' ecu , add a MSD and a 2bbl manifold and be done with it ! Before i do this i want to give it my all and find the bleepin' prob ! Is there anyone on the planet that has the solution ?????? Another thought would be to just go to the salvage yard and buy the 2.4 toyota with the tranny or a Nissan /tranny and be done with it LOL ! I'm pretty shure i've replaced / checked everything i can................

Injectors leaking fuel into the cylinders will cause the system pressure to drop and as mentioned your fuel pump may be getting tired and not able to pressurise it properly?

Cold start valve shoudl only really affect a first start situation?

Fuel pick up could be getting restricted with crap in the fuel tank? Change your fuel filter.....

Battery condition, giving it a strong heathy turn over?

replaced the fuel pump (1988 stamped on it ) the fuel filter , replaced the cold start injector, cold start injector actuator switch, temp sending switch and various other switches. plugs are perfect, spark is good, fuel pressure is 40+ lbs. before it goes to the fuel distributor.There is way too many interconnecting systems to make it easy to diagnose . Seriously considering swappin out the motor / trans with a 2.4 toyota or a 2.7 Nissan ! Sombody help before i go to writting it off as experiance ! LOL the money that i've put into it so far i coulda went to the salvage yard and got either one of the above engines and trannys and been done with it , not to mention have it dependable too !

1977 320i - 105k miles - runs strong and lots of fun! At a driving School run by the White Mountain BMW Club of New Hampshire, New Hampshire Motor Speedway, April 16, 2011 - great club and well run event.

Thats a nice one. I WISH my bmw was in that good of shape. Mine has an assortment of dents, the clearcoat is comeing off the hood, and the hood has reverse dents, where these came from I have no clue. Oh and the rear spoiler needs help too.